


you cured my january blues

by bellsrke



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Issues, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Its complicated idk, Mental Health Issues, NOT related to bellamy or clarke but still a fair warning, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, Substance Abuse, nothing major or particularly triggering just as another warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:22:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28612008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellsrke/pseuds/bellsrke
Summary: Clarke and Bellamy meet on a fated New Years Eve, two broken souls from two broken families. Will they help each other heal, or tear each other apart?
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	1. the night we met

**Author's Note:**

> ummm hi? this is not my first attempt at a multi-chapter fic but i'm so determined to finish this and i'm stuck at home unable to go back to university because of the global pandemic so... here i am. anyways i don't know how long this will be but it probably wont be that long idk we'll see, regardless i hope u all enjoy :D and give me a reason to write another chapter i beg i need motivation

It’s a cold New Years’ Eve when Clarke meets Bellamy Blake for the first time; leaning against a balcony railing at a party where she knows hardly anyone. The one friend who invited her disappeared with her boyfriend, who’s not really her boyfriend (but for the sake of simplicity) within ten minutes of their arrival, leaving Clarke in a sweaty, sticky room full of already-drunk strangers. She had stepped outside onto the balcony for a blissful moment of fresh air, to hear herself think.

She startles when she hears a deep voice behind her, “Got a lighter?”, and she turns around to see a man, probably around her age, dressed in a tan t-shirt and dark baggy jeans with a hand-rolled cigarette sticking out his mouth. He’s got that kind of rugged look going for him; unbrushed, curly hair, a scar above his top lip, a small but noticeable bruise on his arm.

Clarke nods her head gently, reaching into her clutch with a quiet, “Yeah,” and pulling out a lighter to give him.

He walks towards her, taking the lighter and positioning himself next to her against the balcony. She watches him as he lights his cigarette, a concentrated look on his face as he brings his free hand up to protect the flame of the lighter from the wind. He takes a drag, then turns to face her, muttering a, “Thanks,” with a small smirk as he hands the lighter back to her.

“No problem,” she responds, not taking her eyes off of his as she places the lighter back in her bag.

She wants to ask his name, but clearly words fail her as nothing else comes out of her mouth as she opens and closes it, looking like a fish. Thankfully though he seems to catch on, and after another drag he holds out his hand, “Bellamy,” he introduces himself as.

She tries not to think about how nice his name sounds on his tongue. “Clarke,” she replies, grasping his hand with her own and giving it a firm shake, finding it surprisingly warm.

“So how come you’re out here instead of in there?” Bellamy asks, gesturing towards the door.

She shrugs, as if she doesn’t know the answer, then adds, “Parties like this aren’t really my thing,” and, essentially, it’s just a shorter version of the truth. “What about you? Aside from feeding that addiction,” she half-jokes, gesturing towards the cigarette between his fingers, which is now close to being finished.

His smirk reappears on his face at her remark. “I don’t really smoke, at least not anymore. It’s more for stress relief.”

Clarke contemplates his words and asks, “What stress do you have to be relieved from?”

“The fact that my living room is currently being trashed by a load of young, drunk people, at least half of which I have never met. Amongst other things,” Bellamy replies, taking a final drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out and dropping it over the ledge.

“This is your place?” Clarke responds, then taking a moment to let her eyes wander across the building.

“Is it up to your standards, madam?” he mocks, clearly seeing the way her interested eyes examine the walls.

She laughs quietly, ducking her head before meeting his eyes again. He’s smiling back at her. “I guess it will do,” she says playfully. His face seems closer to hers than it was previously, so much so that she can now make out the freckles dotted around his nose and cheeks.

He chuckles, a bright sound that she finds herself wanting to hear again. “Thanks for the approval,” he plays along, and it’s nice, relaxed and so unlike the intensity she’s been used to this past year and she craves it.

“Any time,” Clarke responds, and then shivers, like she momentarily forgot that she’s outside in the middle of winter.

He notices, clearly, because he then asks, “You cold?”, to which she responds, “You aren’t?”, but he just smirks again and shakes his head with an, “I don’t really feel the cold.”

She huffs, not in frustration but more in contemplation. “Lucky for some,” she finally says.

“We can go inside, if you want,” Bellamy suggests.

Clarke shakes her head. “I like it out here. It’s peaceful.”

“Fine by me,” Bellamy shrugs, “You have a highlight from this year?” he then asks, after turning to face the street below them.

She watches the cars and people go by for a short moment, thinking about how she could answer his question. “Probably making it out in one piece,” she says jokingly, then realising it’s probably a little heavy for small talk with a guy she just met, so she keeps her eyes trained on the road below her.

But then she sees him smile in her peripheral, and she tries to not make it too obvious when her whole body relaxes. “You can say that again,” he then responds, which she wasn’t expecting.

“Tough year?” she asks, turning to face him slightly.

“A little,” Bellamy responds, and she doesn’t know how but she can tell there’s so much more lying beneath his answer.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asks.

“Not really,” he replies, turning to face her, “You?”

Clarke ducks her head, turns back to face the roads again. “Not really.”

She can see Bellamy nod as he turns to face the road as well, and then they fall into silence, except it’s the comfortable kind that makes her feel safe. Soft white noise surrounds them; quiet shouting from the street, cars honking a while away, the muffled sound of music from inside.

That’s why it almost makes her jump when she hears him speak again. “You ever done people-watching before?”

She has to collect her thoughts before responding. “Yeah, actually, I used to do that a lot with my dad,” and she hopes her voice doesn’t sound as solemn as it does in her head.

If he does pick up on it, he doesn’t comment, for which she is grateful. Instead, he replies, “This is the perfect place for it. Sometimes I even come out here by myself and do it,” pausing for a moment and then adding, “That sounded a lot less sad in my head.”

She just laughs, looking down into the street to see a middle-aged man carrying orange grocery bags, wrapped up in a winter coat. “What do you think about him?” she asks, pointing down at said man.

He follows the line of her finger and looks at the man as he makes his way down the street. “Probably lives alone, if he’s shopping for groceries this late by himself.”

“I think he’s been married before though, maybe has kids too but his ex-partner has them for New Years. Or maybe they’re old enough to live by themselves now.”

“I see what you mean,” he says, “I reckon he has a big dog as well, and a garden. He’s wearing an expensive looking coat.”

Clarke hums in agreement. “Maybe like one of those mountain dogs which look like small bears.”

“Yeah!” Bellamy agrees enthusiastically, although now the man is out of sight. “What about them?” he then asks, pointing to two girls stumbling across the street, arms linked, wearing hardly anything in terms of clothing.

“They’re probably best friends, since they’re linking arms instead of holding hands.”

“That’s a thing?” he asks, confused.

“Mhmm,” she replies, not caring to expand. It’s not really like there’s some kind of sensible explanation for it, that’s just the way it is.

“Interesting,” Bellamy mutters, “Well, they’re clearly drunk. Maybe they got kicked out of a bar, there’s one just up that street.”

“They look like the kind of girls who would annoyingly flirt with the bartender,’ and Bellamy laughs at that, to which she asks, “Something funny?”

He just shakes his head, still smiling. “I know the bartender there.”

“And..?” she waits for his response.

“He’s a great guy, just… not into girls.”

Clarke laughs, “I see. Embarrassing for those girls then,” she says, watching them now skipping along the pavement, giggling at something.

Bellamy smiles, “Indeed,” he says. Then she shivers, again, so he asks, “You sure you don’t wanna go back inside?”

She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, less out of seduction and more out of nervous habit. “I don’t know… there’s just too many people in there.”

And he just smirks, again. “I know somewhere a little quieter.”

She ignores the way her heart kicks up a notch at his insinuation, the way she realises how long it’s been since she’s felt someone’s touch and how overpowering the thought of being intimate with him is. “Lead the way,” she says, cool and collected (she hopes).

He bears a grin at her, holding his hand out for her to take, and his skin is warm to the touch, his grasp solid but gentle as he pulls her through the buzzing crowd of strangers and leads her up the stairs to his room. As soon as they’re inside he’s got his hands placed firmly around her waist and she draws her arms around his neck, their bodies pressed together, lips almost touching, but he’s not doing anything and Clarke is getting impatient so she angles her hips towards his.

The first brush of his lips against hers is unexpectedly soft, the contrast of his warm lips to her cold ones. She pulls his bottom lip into her mouth and she can taste the cigarette he just smoked, she aches for more, but then his kiss gets more insistent and he’s pushing her up against his bedroom door and she’s sure she let out some kind of sound from the back of her throat but his touch is so intoxicating that she doesn’t even register it. It’s hot, demanding but still slow, exactly how she expected it to be, and she finds his hair is soft when she slips her fingers through his scalp and tugs. 

She breaks away from his mouth for air but he doesn’t seem bothered, instead moving his lips down her neck, to her clavicle, along the top of her breasts, so she pulls one hand away from his hair to tug her straps down, exposing herself to him with an invitation that he’s more than willing to take. She feels his lips, his teeth, his tongue hot against her skin, his mouth and hands wandering like he’s everywhere all at once.

She thinks it can’t get better than this, surely, but then he drops to his knees before her, his hands circling her hips, thumbs toying with the hem of her dress as he looks up at her with a cheeky grin laced with a silent question and she hopes she doesn’t look too enthusiastic when she nods her head at him. 

When Bellamy first puts his mouth on her it’s hot and wet but agonisingly slow, and she slips her hands into his hair again, just to hold onto something, and then he suddenly has more purpose, and she comes with his fingers deep inside her and his mouth on her clit. He stands and kisses her again, the tart taste of herself all over his mouth and she can’t get enough.

He lifts her onto the bed and they eagerly strip the rest of their clothes off, and where Bellamy’s skin touches hers she feels like she’s on fire. His weight is balanced over Clarke, his forearms braced either side of her head, just kissing her at first but then he lifts himself up, grabs her legs and lifts them higher up on his torso, sliding into her with a perfect ease. 

He works her up to the edge, then slows down, and then does it again and again and she has never met a man with this much stamina but she gives as good as she gets. Outside she can barely register people counting down to midnight because Bellamy is relentlessly pounding into her from behind, and it almost hurts but it’s the best kind of pain, and this time he doesn’t stop and she can’t help the stream of noises that escape from her mouth when they both finish at the same time. The sound of heavy breathing fills the air, but she can hear the vague shouts of _Happy New Year_ coming from downstairs. 

Bellamy kisses her now sweaty shoulder. “Happy New Year,” he says, his voice rough and gravelly as he pulls out of her.

Clarke sits bak on her knees, turns to face him and says, “Happy New Year,” with a smile plastered on her face, and then, “Where’s your toilet?” because she really knows how to keep the moment alive.

But he just smiles, tells her it’s round the corner to the left and she picks up his t-shirt from the floor, throwing it on herself and walking out the door with a little sway of her hips.

She comes back to find him sitting up in bed, now with boxers on and giving her a strange look. She crawls over to him on the bed, faces him and asks, “What’s up?”

He bites his lip, “I’m not sure I’m the kind of guy you’re looking for.”

She frowns at him. How would he know what she was looking for? Instead, she just asks, “What do you mean?”

Bellamy sighs, “I can’t offer you any more than this.”

It clicks in her mind, then, what he means. “What if I’m okay with that?”

“You are?” he asks, sounding a little surprised.

“Mhmm,” she says in response, lifting herself up on her knees to straddle him, his hands coming up to grasp her hips. “In fact, I think you’re exactly what I need right now,” she follows, her cheek pressed to his and her breath hot on his ear. It’s not really a lie either, after the year she’s had, what she needs is a night with a near-stranger, craving intimacy but not the complications that follow with a relationship.

He pulls her closer into him, her lack of underwear becoming clear to her very quickly which makes her gasp. “Good,” he whispers roughly, for her ears only, “Because I’m not done with you yet.”

He makes good on that, and they fall asleep at three A.M., tired but tingling with dopamine. He wraps her up in his arms, and she feels content to sleep there for the night.

When she wakes up, sunlight is peeking through the curtains and there’s an ache between her legs, like she thought there’d be. Bellamy’s still asleep as she slips out of his arms and pulls on her clothes from the night before, and she looks at his peaceful, sleepy face feeling a smile form on her lips. She leaves, with a tinge of regret, but she doesn’t want to bargain for more than she can get; a stolen night spent with this enigmatic boy, but she’s okay with that despite how she thinks of him every now and then, the way his mouth fit against hers, how his touch had felt like flames lapping against her skin, and she figures that these kind of nights are best left like this.

And yet, the universe has other plans.


	2. the start of something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey ya'll... me again and i managed to write another chapter so woohoo i guess? don't let me speak to soon but maybe this will be the one project i actually manage to complete but maybe it won't let's not hold our breath.
> 
> pls enjoy regardless and indulge in the disease of still having an attachment to bellarke xoxox
> 
> also, tw for mentions of substance abuse

Clarke never expected to see Bellamy again, and out of all the places, she would’ve thought that the least likely one would be the rehabilitation centre that her mother is a patient at, less than a month after their first interaction. But nevertheless, she does a double take as she walks out of the building into the carpark, familiar broad frame and dark messy hair catching her attention, and sure enough, it’s him, sitting on a bench looking puzzled at his phone. He can’t see her, even as she walks towards him, so she gets his attention with a, “Bellamy?” like a question, mostly because she’s not sure why he’s here.

His head jerks up in surprise to face her, and it looks like he visibly relaxes when he sees her face. “Clarke,” he says, his voice raspy like she remembered, like she had thought about for the past few weeks, “I can’t say I expected to see you here.”

“I could say the same to you,” she says, but she leaves it at that, at least for now, and then gestures to the space beside him to ask, “can I sit?”, if a little hesitantly, like treading through unfamiliar waters.

“Of course, go ahead,” he responds, slipping his phone into his back pocket and angling his body towards hers as she lowers herself onto the bench. It’s nice to have the fresh air, a small break away from the chaos, but it can be hard to keep her emotions under the surface after her visits to her mother.

There’s a moment of silence, almost awkward like they’re in uncharted territory, and then he says, “You left without saying goodbye,” not as a question, but it still hangs in the air nonetheless.

Heat rises to her cheeks despite herself but she manages to keep her response cool and collected. “I thought that was what you wanted,” she eyes him carefully, and there’s a guarded expression on his face. He’s wearing a dark brown baggy jumper, one that perfectly compliments his eyes, and she takes note of the rings on his fingers. None on his ring finger, as she would expect, but she doesn’t recall them being there when they first met. But then he smiles, and she breathes a sigh of relief. “Don’t worry about it, I had a good time.”

She ducks her head, shy as if he hasn’t seen her naked already. “So did I,” she replies, and she really did, as she remembers finding it hard not to want more. But she pushes that to the back of her mind, asks him, “How have you been?”

He has a sort of distant look behind his eyes, one that tells her that there’s so much more to him than she’s seen and she wants to learn it all. His voice wavers slightly as he answers, “I’ve been okay, pretty busy,” he pauses, and then, “You?”

“Me too,” she says back to him, not knowing what to say next so she just looks at him and he meets her eyes and they just stay like that for a while, like they’re silently communicating before it gets too intense and she tears her eyes away.

The sun is slowly dipping lower and lower around them, cool January air making her nose and cheeks go pink. He looks good in the warm orange lighting, Clarke thinks, like he’s radiating heat even in the bitter coldness. She’s about to open her mouth to say something, not entirely sure what it might be, but then his phone rings and he winces, looking at her in apology and she just gestures for him to answer it.

He gives her a small smile before speaking into the phone, “Hey, O,” with a soft, sweet voice, and she wonders who’s on the receiving end. Clarke hears the tinny sound of a voice on the phone but can’t make out the words, not that she’s trying to invade his privacy. “Well, I love you too,” he says after a short moment, and Clarke swallows, feeling awkward and intrusive. “Okay, I’ll see you on Sunday. Bye,” he finishes, taking his phone away from his ear and putting it back in his pocket. “My sister,” he starts, and she nods for him to continue because he looks like he wants to add something. “She… I was visiting her,” his voice is shy, unlike how he was when they first met.

Clarke wants to say something more, but all she comes up with is, “My mom,” and he nods, so she reasons it was the right thing to say, and she likes how they manage to convey so much with such little words. 

“How long?” he asks her with an understanding look in his eye that makes her feel safe, and slightly less vulnerable despite how guarded she usually keeps herself.

Clarke swallows, “Thirty-six days so far, but this is her second time here,” she manages to say without her voice cracking. Bellamy nods sympathetically, and she knows it comes from a place of understanding. “How about your sister?” she then asks him, the feeling of awkwardness now replaced by something different, more comforting.

“Forty-two days, but it took months to convince her to go in the first place,” Bellamy responds, sighing heavily like he’s carrying a lot on his shoulders, something that Clarke can empathise with.

Clarke hums in agreement. “Tell me about it. Trying to get my mom to even recognise she had a drug problem in the first place was challenging enough.”

“Octavia’s one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met, she just kept accusing me of being an overbearing older brother when I told her she needed to get help.” He seems more subdued now which makes Clarke wonder how many people he talks to about his sister.

So, she treads softly when she asks, “What was it that made her realise you were right?”

Bellamy takes a deep breath like he’s preparing to answer, and Clarke almost feels like she’s gone in too personal, too deep but then he says quietly, “When she was high she was… very vocally aggressive to the point where it almost scared me. She would spew all these horrible words at me, blame me for everything that was going wrong in her life, one time I even thought she might— I thought she was going to hit me,” the last part comes out a little broken, the raw emotion in his voice so clear, and so she reaches out hesitantly to take his hand and he accepts it with a small smile before continuing. “So, I started filming her when she would lash out, and when I showed her the next day, when she was sober, she was horrified by what she saw, it was like a turning point for her.” She squeezes his hand and he looks up at her, vulnerability written all over his face when he says, “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Clarke responds, giving him a reassuring smile, and then taking a deep breath in to start talking again. “I didn’t even notice my mom had a problem at first, it just kind of snuck up on me like one day she was totally fine and then the next she was all over the place. But when I tried to speak about it she would claim that I was too naïve and young to understand, and that she could take care of herself, but then she almost overdosed and had to get her stomach pumped and I just got so angry at her— for letting it go on for so long, and I think it was when she saw how disappointed I was in her that she wanted to start getting help. I’ve never told anyone that either.”

Bellamy’s lips curve into a half smile as he looks at her. “Well, who better to unload your familial issues onto than a near stranger?”

Clarke laughs softly, ducking her head. “A near stranger who I’ve slept with, no less,” she jokes.

He laughs back, and the atmosphere feels a lot less heavy than it did a moment ago. They let the silence hang comfortably in the air for a while, just watching the sun set, illuminating everything in a warm orange glow. Their hands are still entwined, and his presence is grounding her.

“The sky looks beautiful,” Clarke eventually says absent-mindedly, looking up at the gradient where the orange meets the blue of the sky in a soft peachy colour.

“It does,” he agrees, and it feels like a good omen after a long, drawn out day.

In a spurred, inspired moment, she then asks, “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

He turns to face her, his freckles illuminated in the soft light. “Probably just walk home, put on a depressing film and wallow in self pity,” he says jokingly, but somehow she knows that there’s an element of truth to what he’s saying.

“Walk home? Bellamy, it’s freezing,” she settles on saying.

“I’ll be okay, I’m a big boy,” he responds teasingly.

“Seriously, Bellamy, I know how shitty it is to be alone after leaving this place. If you want, we can go get something to eat? Just as friends, I mean, not that we’re friends, I’m not assuming—“ she rambles on, but he cuts her off eventually.

“Clarke, slow down,” he says, placating her by rubbing circles into her hand. “I’d like that. I could use a friend right now.”

Clarke sighs, heat rising to her cheeks making them even pinker. “Good,” she nods, “shall we go then?”

He gives her a big grin then, one that makes her stomach unwillingly feel a little giddy. “No time like the present,” he says, standing up and pulling her with him. The movement causes her to almost collide straight into his chest, but his other arm reaches out to steady her. “You good?” he asks, a slight concern etched on his face as he looks down at her.

She shrugs it off, “All fine, let’s go,” she says, pulling him in the direction of her car so that he has no choice but to follow her.

Clarke drives them to her local diner, the one she frequents often after she visits her mother at rehab, and she smiles at the familiar face behind the counter.

“Clarke, hey! Good to see you,” Diyoza says with an unusually chirpy tone to her voice.

Clarke doesn’t read into it, though, just responds in an equally bright manner, “Hey, Diyoza, it’s nice to see you too.”

Diyoza picks up a cloth as she continues to talk, wiping down the grease off the counter. “You don’t normally bring friends here,” she says suggestively like she’s asking a question.

“Oh, uh, this is my friend Bellamy,” and she says friend with the tiniest bit of hesitancy, “Bellamy, this is Diyoza.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bellamy pipes in, and in her peripheral she can see his lips curl into a cheeky smirk like he knows something she doesn’t.

“You too,” Diyoza responds, then turning to Clarke and asking, “Counter or booth?”

“Booth today, please,” she responds, feeling herself warm up from the cold winds outside.

“Sure, just take your pick,” Diyoza says, gesturing to all the free booths dotted around the diner.

Clarke chooses one by the window and Bellamy slides in opposite her with that same grin he was wearing a moment ago, so she tilts her head at him, asks, “What?” almost frustratedly.

“Nothing, nothing!” Bellamy responds, putting his hands up as if he’s surrendering. “You always come here alone?”

Clarke swallows, a slight feeling of hesitancy filling her gut. “I come here after seeing my mom, it’s like my comfort place I guess,” she says, hoping there at least sounds like there’s an element of nonchalance in her words. She ties a lot of different emotions to this place, the majority of them connected to her relationship with her mother, and it’s not sacred, but it means something to her.

He does, however, seem to catch on to the fact that there’s more emotion to her words than she’s letting on, because he says, “I have a place like that too.”

She raises her eyebrows at him, not really in surprise but rather curiosity. “Really?”

Bellamy nods, almost solemnly. “Yeah, it’s this small coffee shop library thing…” he trails of as if distracted, before adding, “I go there to wind down a little, just get away from everything bad in my life even if it’s only for a short while, you know?”

“I know what you mean,” Clarke responds, empathy laced in her every word because she really does understand, better than anyone could.

They share a brief moment of silence, not entirely uncomfortable but still a little tense like they’re almost communicating silently, but then he breaks it when he says, “Okay, moving on from all the depressing topics,” with a light smile.

Clarke laughs a little despite everything, but ever grateful for the change in tone. She’s not sure what exactly it is about Bellamy that makes her feel like she could share anything with him, someone she arguably hardly knows and shared a brief moment with in the past, but she’s glad he seems to be giving the same energy back. Clarke is usually very guarded with everything about her personal life, never wanting to give anyone too much information that could end up backfiring but perhaps it was the familiarity in the way he presents himself that she resonated with so unexpectedly. “God, if anyone heard our conversation they’d probably think we were two utterly miserable people,” she says with a smile; one that he returns so brightly.

He shrugs in response, “Well then they clearly don’t know us at all,” he then says, that damned familiar smirk making another appearance on his face.

A little harmless flirting can’t hurt, she thinks, but she doesn’t want to cross too many lines despite the fact they’ve already slept together. In all honesty, she doesn’t want to compromise this fresh, new friendship that appeared so unexpectedly in her life.

She’s about to open her mouth in response, but before she can get any words out, Diyoza has all of the sudden appeared at their table to take their order, so she swallows down whatever it was she was going to say, and places her order whilst Bellamy looks at the menu.

They make idle conversation as they wait for their food to come, and then whilst their eating too, and she finds out that they bounce off each other really well; everything he says she manages to produce a witty response to, and when she makes him laugh, this warm sense of pride and something else that she can’t name fills her stomach.

Clarke is halfway through dipping her fry in her milkshake when she hears him say, “You monster,” from across the table in an overly exaggerated shocked tone.

She looks up at him as she throws the fry into her mouth. “What?” she asks him, her voice slightly incoherent from the half-chewed food in her mouth, which she belatedly realises is probably not a good look on her.

“Dipping fries in milkshakes should be a crime,” he half-jokes as he shakes his head in disbelief.

Clarke just shrugs. “Everyone has their unconventional food combos, you can’t tell me you don’t.”

“Or maybe I just have normally functioning tastebuds,” he retorts cheekily, so she picks up a slightly burnt fry and flicks it at him so that it hits his cheek, which elicits a “hey!” from him.

She narrows her eyes at Bellamy, pointing his finger at him as if accusing him of something. “Don’t insult my food preferences,” she says, and he raises his eyebrows in response so she reaches for another fry, except this time his hand darts out and grabs her wrist before she has the chance to. She looks up at him under her lashes with a sly smile on her face like she’s challenging him.

Bellamy’s touch feels hot on her wrist but yet surprisingly gentle. “We can agree to disagree,” he says meeting her stance with equal force when he smirks at her.

Clarke swallows down the feeling rising from her stomach as she replies with a short, “Fine,” but he doesn’t let go of her wrist, so she has to ask, “are you going to let me go?”

“Depends,” Bellamy responds, biting his lip, “are you going to terrorise me with you food again?”  
“I think terrorise is a little over the top,” she says back, stifling a giggle, “but I will do my best to refrain.”

He lets go of her wrist then, and she almost misses the touch, the heat of his presence. He just smiles at her, and the conversation carries on how it did before until there’s almost nothing left on their plates, so they split the bill half-and-half, say goodbye to Diyoza and walk quickly to her car in an attempt to get out of the freezing cold.

“I can still get the bus back home, you know—“ Bellamy starts, but she cuts him off quickly.

“It’s no trouble to drive you, Bellamy, I promise I really don’t mind,” she says casually, but at the back of her mind the thought that she wants to spend more time with him is tugging at her brain.

“Okay,” he says, a little shy when he ducks his head, so Clarke just starts the engine and turns the radio up.

They end up singing the whole ride to Bellamy’s apartment, and it feels so easy, so right, and she can’t help but be thankful that she came across him again.

When Clarke pulls up outside his building, she asks him for his phone, and although he frowns he gives it to her without question, and she hides her smile as she punches her number into his contacts under Clarke Griffin with the emoji of the guy with the sunglasses, and then passes it back to him. He smiles when he sees what she’s done.

“Thanks for the ride,” he says, looking over at her with a cheeky grin.

She smiles back at him. “Any time. And if you ever need a friend…” Clarke trails off, hoping he gets the idea.

“I’ll know who to call,” he finishes for her, then reaching for the door, “I’ll see you round, Clarke Griffin.”

He hops out turning around to face her just as she responds, “Bye, Bellamy,” and he smiles as he shuts the door, wrapping his coat tighter around him.

Clarke watches him walk over to his building and unlock the door, turning around to give her a final wave which she returns happily before he disappears, and she drives off feeling content, momentarily forgetting about all the shitty things in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment perhaps? also yes this is unbeta'd so if u see a spelling or grammar mistake jus pretend it ain't there we not all perfect

**Author's Note:**

> leave comments mayhaps? i thrive off validation


End file.
